Bordeaux

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So my friend from Madrid loved France so much that she decided she would come back for a stint in Bordeaux. I thought I might as well join her and off we went. We took covoiturage again to get there, this time we had a couple, of whom I would suggest the feline half of the relationship had better contact woman's refuge. After listening to them go at each other on and off for over 4 hours, it was a welcome breath of fresh air to step out of the car and touch the soil of Aquitaine for the first time.

We had a hotel in a place called Merignac, a decent bus ride from the centre. So after arranging our things, showering etc, we set off for Bordeaux and spent the morning walking around, organising the coming days. We also went to a restauraunt that served up such a good entrecôte that by the time we left there was a two hour queue there, waiting in the rain.

After lunch we headed out to reputedly the biggest sand dune in Europe, arriving back at the hotel at around 2am. We then got up at 6am, headed to St Emilion for a wine tour, then spent the afternoon in another excellent restauraunt where I had a Bordeaux specialty named lamproie à la bordelaise. One of the best meals I had in France, which is saying something, especially coming from such an ugly fish. A lamproie à la bordeliase's ingredients includes a bizarre sounding mix of chocolate, wine and fish. Nonetheless the end result/taste is anything but strange and apart from the damage to the wallet, was a well worthwhile experience.

In the evening we bought a bottle of Médoc and Sauternes and passed away the evening bloated and content. The next morning, it was back to the real world, with a 6h trip to Paris. This time the covoiturage people were a mother and daughter combination who were absolutely lovely, offering us all sorts of Bordeaux cakes and sweets that they had bought for the journey. Not that we needed any fattening...

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